There have been only a few people who took notice that there was
a policy proposal up for discussion, so hopefully this will get a
few more people interested.
I've proposed a bot policy for approval. I think it's decent.
Here's why:
* It is descriptive and informative
* Uses a lightweight approval process leaving plenty of
latitude for bureaucrats
* Allows administrators the use of the flood flag (proposal
borrowed from Meta, where it's been working very nicely, I
think). The flood flag portion is important, I think for a
few reasons:
* When admins want to move 500 pages at once, it lets them not
flood RC. Now that we have move-subpages, this will be
important.
* Extends temp bot privileges to admins - until now really only
bureaucrats could to this (in fact, I think WK might be the
only person who's ever done this?) for a few reasons:
* Too much trouble to ask for it
* 'Crat has to be there to give & remove
* There will now actually be permission in policy to let us do
that
Clarifies a few things like "scripts are not bots"Right now,
the only objection I can discern is that the policy is too long
or unfocused or something. I don't see any way to make it shorter
or otherwise remove stuff without losing valuable clarity. I
suppose it is possible to split out the flood flag sections to a
new page, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that all this
should be on one page. If we decide to split it, we would not
need a separate vote or discussion - a simple "{{support}} but
split out the flood flag bits ~~~~" is all we need, I think.
Thanks,
Mike
----
Mike.lifeguard
mikelifeguard(a)fastmail.fm
I have a few templates on Wikibooks that are designed to show some
text with a border around it or with a different background color, to
set it apart from the rest of the text. This is used for Examples,
Questions, Sidenotes, Vignettes, etc. None of the templates we have
now seem to generate borders/background colors in generated PDF files
or printed books. Is there a way to offset text like this from normal
paragraph text? If not, can one be added?
--Andrew Whitworth
I've been using this wiki-to-print extension today, and it's
wonderful! However, I have come up with a few details that I would
like to mention and hopefully have addressed in the future. Is this
list a good place for these points, or should I open bugzilla tickets,
or what?
1) The connection to PediaPress seems unreliable. Clicking "Order Book
from PediaPress" returns an error about as often as it succeeds. I
will try to record more data about this failure mode next time I see
it
2) The books generated by PediaPress look amazing (I've just ordered
my first one, so I will tell you how it looks when it gets here).
However, I would like to be able to adjust the cover image, and
possibly list multiple editors on the cover
3) In the generated PDF files, at the top of the GFDL license, there
is a shortcut link to "WP:GFDL". This shortcut won't work on
en.wikibooks. We either need to localize this to say "WB:GFDL", or we
need to provide a fully-qualified URL to a place where a person can
actually find the GFDL.
4) In addition to the GFDL, I would like to be able to specify
additional boiler-plate preface and appendix text, such as an "About
Wikibooks" page that will be automatically included in all books
(perhaps as checkbox option, if some people don't want it). This way
when/if we start to distribute/sell these books, recipients will know
what the book is, where to find the electronic copy of it, how to edit
and improve it, etc. I'm working on a page now (at
[[Wikibooks:Collections Preface]]) that people can include manually
for now, but having to manually include this page in every collection
we make will be annoying.
5) PDF rendering times, especially for some of the larger books I've
tried (>200 pages) are very slow. Is this an acceptable server load?
6) I've noticed problems with rendering nested list structures, like:
*First
*:Note about the first (this renders wrong)
*Second
*:Note about the second (this also renders wrong).
These are some of the biggest issues I've seen so far, and they're
very small! I look forward to seeing how things progress on the
development of this extension.
--Andrew Whitworth
For those who aren't on foundation-l, news has arrived that the
GFDL 1.3 was released, containing the relicensing clause which
could allow us to move to CC-by-sa-3.0
My general impression has been that we think this is a good
thing, and we would discuss it if/when the option arrived. So,
let's start thinking about this some more. I suggest reading the
new bits of the license, the FAQ and perhaps reviewing some
comments on foundation-l if you need background.
I look forward to some fruitful discussion.
-Mike
----
Mike.lifeguard
mikelifeguard(a)fastmail.fm